The scent of sex

Towards the end of his life, John Betjeman was asked during a television interview if he had any regrets. Ravaged by Parkinson’s disease he tremblingly replied, ‘Not enough sex.’ The effect was at once comic, touching and desperately sad — like his best poems, in fact — and his words have haunted me ever since.

From what you read in the public prints, you might think that anyone who writes for The Spectator is endlessly at it, that condoms are supplied gratis with each miserly pay cheque, and that once this column is completed I will be taking my pick from any number of admiring lovelies.

Not a bit of it. All the action seems to be reserved for those in, ahem, senior positions, while your lowly columnist is left like a penniless child standing forlornly on the pavement and gazing longingly through the window of a temptingly stocked sweet shop.

In such circumstances one is forced to take one’s pleasures vicariously. It’s pathetic how grateful I am when any actress removes her clothes on stage for what the director doubtless mendaciously describes as ‘artistic reasons’. So my eyes lit up when I saw a report about the new Goldfrapp album, Supernature, in the Guardian, which has apparently got the critics ‘all steamed up’.

The cover features Alison Goldfrapp striking a provocative pose and wearing nothing except her black nail polish, while the contents have been variously described as ‘flushed, sexy and improbably beautiful’, ‘post-coital’ and blessed with ‘lashings of sexual frisson’. Needless to say I was down at HMV within minutes.

In fact, the album strikes me as a disappointment. Imagine a cross between T-Rex and the bland trip-hop outfit Morcheeba, and you’ll get some idea of what’s on offer — the odd hooky tune, loads of crunchy synthesisers and Ms Goldfrapp trying far too hard to sound as though she is recovering from the best orgasm of her life.